Transparent Fears
by dragonprincess1988
Summary: Raph faces his worst fear. *Note: Thanks to Grungekitty for the idea.


Raph doesn't remember how he was captured, and he's not entirely sure where he is, at the moment. All he knows is that he's trapped in a transparent container, strapped down so he can't move, while he waits for something - he doesn't know what - to happen. He thinks this might be the first step in teaching him true patience, because Raph knows that whatever is going to happen to him is something that he'd rather put off for as long as possible. It's so cold in the room, that he's sure that he's going to end up freezing to death. Still, he thinks he could probably lie here for days without complaint, if it meant never discovering what the nozzle and adjoining hose attached to his containment unit is for. He knows enough to know that its purpose is mostly likely to fill said translucent cage with something, though Raph doesn't have a single clue as to what, and he'd rather not think about it right now.

He fretfully tries to distract himself, but he's not like Leo. Raph can't just force himself to meditate while he's lying here, helplessly anticipating the worst. He knows just as many relaxation techniques as his brother. In fact, he possibly knows even more - given how often Master Splinter tries to help him calm down and control his rage - and yet, none of them are working. Every time Raph's gaze travels to the ominous nozzle placed over his head, his heart beats rapidly in his chest. He squeezes his eyes shut tight as he attempts to breathe calmly.

However, his attempt to calm down is immediately shattered when he hears a large heavy metal door open and slam somewhere to his left. The sound of heavy footfalls soon fallows, and Raph swallows thickly as he tilts his head as much as he can in the direction of the sound. There's a bright light shining above his head, nearly blinding him from all except the gun metal gray nozzle seemingly hovering above him. Beyond that Raph sees nothing but darkness. At least that is until a large metal clad hand slams down on his glass prison, startling him. Raph would recognize that particular gauntlet covered hand anywhere.

The moment recognition flashes in the turtle's eyes, Shredder's imposing form moves into view, blocking out enough light that Raph can make out his smirking eyes beneath his gleaming helmet. Raph growls at the daunting figure above him, unwilling to show his fear. He knows that his show of defiance will most likely only make whatever is about to happen next worse, but Raph doesn't know how to be anything or anyone else. He steels himself as he glares at his greatest enemy.

"Tell me where your pathetic rat master is now!"

Raph can't help but laugh at the absurdity of it all. Surely, Shredder knows that it won't be that easy. He's the obstinate one, after all. "Never gonna happen, shred-head."

Shredder is smiling underneath his helmet, Raph can tell just from the gleam in his eyes. He can't help but shudder at the grating sound of Shredder's laughter. "I was hoping you'd say that, turtle." Shredder reaches up and takes a hold of a lever attached to the nozzle. His hand halts on the lever for a moment. "Remember, I gave you a chance, disgusting creature."

Before Raph really knows what's happening, there's a groaning sound as a valve on the tubing attached to the nozzle opens, and then a swirling black mass begins pouring out of the nozzle and filling the box Raph is lying in. It takes him a moment to realize what just hit him full force in the face, and once he does Raph has to practically bite his tongue to keep from screaming at the top of his lungs. It's a mass of moving, squirming, biting, disgusting bugs. He's drowning in them and Raph finally knows where he is, because there's no doubt in his mind that he's in hell.

He feels them crawling all over his skin, insects of every kind, skittering across his flesh and into his nostrils. He's shaking all over, but Raph can't help that. He tries so hard to keep his mouth closed, afraid that the bugs will take advantage of any opening that they can, but he has to breathe, which he can't really do through his beak right now. He pries open his lips just the barest amount to let in air, but it's enough for something with far too many legs to slither into his mouth. He instinctively tries to push the intruding vermin out of his mouth with his tongue, but all that it does is open his mouth wider, allowing even more of the foul things to invade. It feels like a thousand little legs are scurrying over his tongue and down his throat. The sensation has him heaving in seconds.

The putrid smell of bile and the burning in his throat are meaningless in the face of so many disgusting pests. There's nothing but a moving wall of black in front of him. He can feel the bugs skittering over every inch of him, biting and burrowing into his flesh. Raph can't help but scream, even though it does nothing to improve his situation. His screams don't even drown out the sound of the horde of insects' movement. It doesn't matter, though; Raph doesn't think he'll ever stop screaming. He can hear something larger than the rest of the insects slithering closer to him out of the mass of bugs, and Raph begins to shake more violently than ever, because he knows that sound. He can never forget that sound.

It's the brain worm. It has to be, because the sound of those swirling teeth and the way it buried itself into his skull still haunts his dreams to this day. It's going to burrow its way into his head, and there's nothing that Raph can do about it. A part of him fears what he will be made to do this time, while under Shredder's control, but that fear seems insignificant when compared to what he's currently dealing with right now. In fact, there's a part of him - and it's a part that Raph is undeniably ashamed of - that wants nothing more than for the brain worm to take over, because he knows that the only relief he's ever going to get from this hell is if he can't feel a thing anymore.

Something large and heavy bites his head and Raph screams louder than he ever has before as tears rapidly trail down his face. He waits and waits for that horrible, inescapable pain as the worm slowly drills into his head, but there's nothing. It feels like eons before Raph realizes that the giant worm like creature crawling all over his head has legs...lots and lots of legs. He desperately tries to shake his head and dislodge the revolting centipede that's currently gnawing on his flesh, but he can't move even that much. He doesn't know how much longer he can endure this, but Raph knows that he has to try. He knows what Shredder will ask of him, if he gives in, and Raph won't do that...he can't do that. He won't betray his family.

There are long slender worms weaving their way through his fingers and toes, and Raph desperately tries to remain still, because every twitch of his muscles seems to invite more of the insects to slide over his skin, under his shell, and between his digits. He clenches his teeth and tries to ignore the feeling of bugs being squashed between them. He spits at the foul sour taste left in his mouth, but his warm breath only encourages more of the repulsive insects to curl in against his beak. He knows that the vermin are only searching for warmth in the bleak chill of the room, warmth that only his body can provide, for it's the only thing in the immediate proximity that isn't bitter cold.

Raph has never really cared about the fact that his temperature tends to be the hottest out of all of his brothers. It works in his favor during the winter months and often means that his brothers curl up around him when the freezing air in the lair eventually gets to them. Now, however, Raph hates his higher temperature, because the closer the insects get to his radiating warmth, the quicker they move, the more they bite, the more they burrow into his flesh, and the louder the sound of their movement becomes.

He desperately tries to drown out the noise of their beating wings and scurrying legs, buzzing and scratching rapidly against his skin the warmer they get. He tries to ignore the feeling of burning, inflamed, and itching bite marks quickly covering every inch of his entire body that no amount of struggling will help him scratch. He can't think…can't cope…can't even try to find a way out, because every thought in his mind is replaced with never ending fear and pain. He wants to believe that his brothers will come for him…that they will save him, but that hope seems like a ridiculous delusion right now. All Raph knows is that he never stops screaming. However, the swarming mass of insects is so deafeningly loud in his ears that he's not even sure if he's still screaming out loud, or only within his own mind.

XYZXYZ

It's days later, or, at least, it feels like days when Raph gasps out, barely able to form words in his wrecked state. "Enough...please...whatever you want...just make it stop. Let me out, please." He feels lower than dirt, accepting defeat like this, but Raph can't take it anymore. He can't take the crawling sensation of hundreds of thousands of insect legs skittering across his skin. He can't take the millions of painful bites and the sickening sensation of various bugs burrowing into his flesh, all the while anticipating and dreading the worst of the worst, and yet, desperately wanting it to happen, so that he can finally have the tiniest release from all of this.

"Tell me where the rat is hiding and I'll let you out."

Raph shakes all over. He knows this trick. "No, no, you'll leave me here. You'll leave me trapped. Let me out first!"

Shredder laughs, and Raph doesn't understand how that sound can cause his skin to crawl more than the insects do. "Smart turtle, but this was just for fun. I don't need you to tell me where they are. I already have a way to find your useless family. Enjoy your stay, turtle." The sound of Shredder's feet retreating from the room is deafening, so much so that Raph almost doesn't hear the insects anymore.

"No, no! Come back! Please! Let me out! Please!" Raph screams, uncaring of the insects crawling into his mouth. He swallows them down just so he can scream some more. He screams until he physically can't scream anymore, and then he waits. He doesn't know what he's waiting for. He doesn't know when exactly he completely gave up on the hope that his brothers would save him, but with nothing but the sound of a swarm of insects in his ears, he's finding it hard to rekindle any lingering hope he may have.

Instead, he closes his eyes and tries not to think about the pain, fear, and disgust as bugs scamper over his eyelids. He thinks of the way Mikey likes to hum songs to Ice Cream Kitty as he cooks random items in the kitchen. Raph tries to mentally replace the squirming, buzzing sound of the insects with the sound of Mikey's obnoxiously melodic tones. He imagines the pain of the bites as nothing more than the pinpricks of needles as Donnie does another one of his thousand checkups, but there are too many of them all at once, so he instead replaces the image with something else.

He considers that instead of bites or needles the sharp pains covering his body are nothing more than shards of glass sinking into his flesh, not unlike that time he was showered with sparkling broken glass as Leo was thrown through April's window. However, remembering that is almost as bad as remember where he actually is and what exactly is happening to him. No, it's best for him to think of them as Donnie's needles. He thinks about the methodical way his brother always slowly pushes the needle under his skin and waits patiently for the vial attached to fill with blood.

The long itchy fluttering sensation of possibly millions of insect legs transforms to the impression of Master Splinter's fur and whiskers tickling his skin as he holds him close after another long terrifying nightmare. However, thinking of nightmares only reminds Raph of his current predicament. He wonders if his father feels as much remorse as he does that the only time Raph can really remember his father holding him close without the others present is when he ran to him in tears as a child after a petrifying dream.

Raph shakes the thought from his mind and instead imagines that his straining, trembling, weak muscles are from more than just fighting his restraints and desperately trying to escape the horde of bugs crawling all over him. Instead, he thinks of the many times he's finished a spar with Leo feeling exactly like this, tired and sore, but knowing that it's worth it, because it makes both of them stronger. He thinks about all of the sparring the two of them did together to get Leo back on his feet after the invasion, but few of those fights left Raph feeling like this.

Raph decides to think about all of the fights he has had with Leo before all of that instead, but those didn't leave him feeling like this, either. No, after those fights Raph felt pain, but it wasn't physical…not usually, anyway. More often than not, he ended up feeling angry, inadequate, emotionally exhausted, guilty, and, beyond all else, longing for things to be different. Now, he finds himself wishing things were different once more, but for far dissimilar reasons. He wonders if Leo is ever thankful for the invasion the way that he is sometimes. He's not thankful that his brother and sensei were nearly killed or that they nearly lost New York and all of its citizens, but Raph knows that he would never have such a good relationship with Leo if it wasn't for the invasion and everything that happened afterwards. Still, Raph doubts that any of that matters now.

XYZXYZ

Raph doesn't know how long it's been since The Shredder left him here to rot, but when he hears the heavy metal door open once more, he hopes it's someone intent on just killing him and putting him out of his misery. It feels like he's been trapped in this box for eons. He hasn't been able to distract himself from the feel, or sound, or pain of the mass of bugs constantly skittering all over him and gnawing on every inch of him in so long that he's beginning to feel like a giant decaying carcass slowly being devoured. He stares up into the bright light above him, almost unseeingly for a long moment, and then he realizes that someone is standing over his containment unit. It takes him a second to recognize that it's The Shredder, because Raph is too busy staring at Shredder's hand…well, more importantly, what's in Shredder's hand.

Raph's eyes widen as he recognizes the brain worm, squirming in a pair of metal tongs, held up above his head. He desperately tries to wet his tongue enough to speak. "Please, please, just give it to me." His words come out as an exhausted whisper, but, judging from The Shredder's reaction, he hears him loud and clear.

Shredder reels back for a moment, seemingly surprised that Raph is begging for the mind control serum. Raph guesses that the man expected him to plead with him to get it away from him, but Raph would do anything, absolutely anything, to just stop feeling right now. In fact, at this point, he'd let Stockman hack away at his brain with a scalpel, if it meant he never had to feel again. Shredder laughs once more. "So, you have finally broken."

Raph doesn't care. He doesn't care that he's broken. He doesn't care that after all of the times Master Splinter has tried in vain to convince him that bugs are harmless, they're the very things that have destroyed him. "Give it to me, please!" If he could move his hands, Raph would be frantically reaching for the brain worm, but all he can do is weakly strain against his bindings.

"Very well, but know this. Your family will know that you begged for this. They will know that by begging for this, you willingly gave away their location. You willingly betrayed them, just as Yoshi once betrayed me."

Raph still doesn't care. Shredder could spend hours standing here, taunting him, and Raph still wouldn't care one single bit. The realization sparks something within him. He doesn't need the brain worm, after all, because he's already emotionless. He laughs out loud at the irony that his last ounce of free will is being spent on the realization that for once his emotions aren't controlling him, because he finally doesn't have anything left to feel. Still, Raph doesn't regret asking for the brain worm for a single moment. After all, it'll be nice for the physical pain and noise to finally die down. He remembers how muffled his senses were the first time one of those worms burrowed its way into his skull, and Raph honestly can't wait for the sensation to overtake him once more.

XYZXYZ

Shredder moves to lower the brain worm into Raph's glass cage, but before he can a shuriken comes flying out of nowhere and pierces the worm directly through the middle. There's a terrible screeching sound before the worm dies and Shredder drops the dead creature onto the floor. Raph watches in utter disbelief as three very distinctive, very familiar shadows land around him. A fourth, larger, and obviously furry shadow lands directly behind The Shredder, and immediately attacks. Raph doesn't know whether to laugh or cry, and he's pretty sure that he's currently doing both. A bo staff and nunchucks smash into his transparent case at the exact same time, and Raph's prison shatters around him.

The bugs scatter as the whole lot of them fall to the floor. He can see hands moving frantically to remove his bindings. Raph immediately attempts to get to his feet. He wobbles and feels as though he's going to hit the ground too, but, before he can, there are strong arms wrapping around him, stopping his descent. Raph stares up into the eyes of his older brother and shakes all over. He feels as though he's falling apart at the seams. "Kill me. Let this end." Raph begs, knowing that the only one who could ever be strong enough to give him what he wants - what he deserves - is Leo.

Leo holds him tighter as he gets ready to move him. "No, it's over now. You're safe. You're coming home. It's gonna be okay."

Raph shakes his head, knowing that Leo doesn't understand. "It'll never be okay. I gave in…again."

Leo glances over at their genius brother, seemingly beseeching for help, but Raph knows no help will ever come…not if they aren't willing to grant him this one wish. "He'll need time to recover from all of this." Donnie gestures to the room at large as they make their exit in a cloud of smoke, Master Splinter following behind quickly on their heels.

Once the smoke clears, and their outside, Raph laughs again, hoarse and with an edge of hysteria. Surely by now they've realized that there's nothing here worth saving…not after what he's done. "There is no recovery from this."

Everyone is silent as they get into the battle shell, everyone except for Raph, who has moved from laughing to crying. Leo is still holding him, and Donnie is beside him. He feels a pinprick in his arm, but Raph just assumes it's another bug biting him. He realizes that he's free now. He can push the bug off of him, but his arms are too weak to move. Raph glances down to see what kind of bug it is, at least, only to discover Donnie slowly, meticulously, removing a needle from his arm.

Raph can't help but laugh once again. He turns his gaze on Donnie, whose busy rummaging through a first aid kit. "Needles are better than bugs. They're better than glass, too, but anything's better than bugs. Thousands upon thousands of needles, but needles don't hum and buzz. Bugs buzz…Mikey hums. They aren't the same, either. Whiskers and fur tickle…bugs itch…can't scratch…just itch and burn. Spars hurt…good pain…restraints and bugs hurt…bad pain…still not the same. Not even close enough to pretend. Miss sparring pain…miss fur and whisker hugs…miss needle pains…miss humming." Raph doesn't even realize he's speaking out loud until his voice trails off.

Donnie evidently gave him the good stuff. He can tell by how fuzzy his mind feels. He knows Donnie's intent is for him to sleep, but Raph doesn't remember the last time he slept without bugs crawling all over him. He doesn't know if he remembers how to sleep without the constantly noise invading his every thought. Raph's eyes shut as he sinks into the warm embrace of his brother, knowing that this is the only reprieve he will get from his crushing failure.

XYZXYZ

Leo waits until he's sure that Raph is out completely before turning to Donnie for answers. "What was all of that that he was mumbling about?"

Donnie shakes his head as he starts pulling things out of the first aid kit, seemingly at random. "I have no idea, Leo. He's thin, weak, dehydrated, cold, and that was a strong sedative."

Mikey bites his bottom lip as he scoots closer to the other two. "Is…is Raph gonna be okay?"

Leo doesn't know what to say, because, judging by what Raph asked of him when they rescued him, Leo would say, 'no, not at all.' Instead, he shrugs and tries to keep his gaze down, away from his little brother. "He needs time, Mikey." Leo takes a deep calming breath as he tries to focus on helping Donnie stabilize Raph. "I think we all do." He mutters to himself.

Donnie shakes out a blanket and places it over Raph's unconscious form. Leo knows what he's thinking. They might be able to treat Raph's physical trauma, but none of them have any idea how they're going to care for his mental and psychological state. Leo never believed he would ever hear his physically strongest brother weakly beg for him to kill him, and a part of him wants so desperately to deny it and pretend like it never happened. Nothing would make him happier than to discover that this has all been one long terrible nightmare, but Leo knows better. Just as he knows that that whispered plea will invade his dreams and haunt his every waking moment for the foreseeable future.

Leo hangs his head in shame. They should have been faster. They should have found him sooner. None of this should have ever happened, and now Leo has no idea how Raph will ever recover. In fact, he has no idea how any of them will. They spent weeks wondering if they would ever see their most tenacious brother again, and now Leo isn't entirely sure that the turtle lying unconscious in his arms is still his brother at all. Leo has never seen his brother so frail and broken before, and it terrifies him.

He's never known Raph to give up, not that he blames him for doing so. No, Leo doesn't see this as Raph's failure. He could never see this as Raph's failure, because Leo knows that it's his own. He should have been a better leader. He should have been a better brother. If he had realized that Raph was missing sooner, then maybe none of this would have happened in the first place. Perhaps he could have spared his brother from suffering through his worst fear all alone and with no escape, if only he had tried harder and discovered that old abandoned warehouse sooner. Except he didn't, and now they must all face the consequences of his failure together.

The End


End file.
